http://www.tylerpaper.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090815/RELIGION01/908150325
August 15, 2009
by Patrick Butler
The Woodstock Arts and Music festival 40 years ago today could be
succinctly summed up as a colossal, mistake and a unique one at that.
The "Aquarian Festival" proved to be an unrepeatable phenomenon and
is yet recalled with misguided sentimentality.
Don't get me wrong; the world could use three days of peace and music
just now. But what it really needs, as it did then, is a deep
sustainable peace that goes beyond the boundaries of youthful
optimism mixed with marijuana.
What the world needs now is real "love, sweet love," and Woodstock
may remind us that by and large, the generation flailing in the mud
at Max Yasgur's farm failed to find it. Take another look at
turbulent 1969. We don't know similar terror in America today; riots,
strident mass demonstrations and the very-present threat of mutually
assured destruction (MAD) through a never-ending nuclear arms race.
In 1969 protest was a violent art. A hostile takeover back then had
nothing to do with stock dividends as it does today. It meant taking
to the streets ala the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention and
provoking a full-on "police riot" as some called it. It meant burning
down the Bank of America branch at Isle Vista, near Santa Barbara,
Cailf. and the Symbionese Liberation Army, the militant Weathermen,
the Chicago Seven "yippies" and The Catonsville Nine, a group of war
protesting Catholics.
It was a time of the Black Panthers, Brown Berets and the bothersome
Berrigan brothers pouring blood all over military draft records. And
the U.S. would have to be in Afghanistan for 50 years at current
casualty rates before we approached the death toll of Vietnam. For a
time, Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan was on the FBI's Ten Most
Wanted List. We have nothing like this today.
In the midst of this seeming national insanity was Woodstock, a flash
point for self-described "freaks" who wanted to flaunt their feelings
for the world to see. And through the (now re-released) movie
"Woodstock they did. The world saw Country Joe McDonald leading
300,000 people in his signature "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag."
"One, two three, what are we fighting for?" he provokes the crowd
lyrically. "Don't ask me I don't give a ____. Next stop is Vietnam.
Five, six, seven open up the pearly gates. Ain't no time to wonder
why, whoopee, we're all gonna die." And "Woodstock Nation" as some
called it, roared.
Woodstock may have been primarily a party to some, but to so many
others it was a protest that smelled like pot.
"Coming into Los Angle-eees, bringin' in a couple of keys. Don't
touch my bags if you please Mr. Customs man," sang a very young Arlo
Guthrie, whose father Woody stirred controversy in his day with his
song "This Land Is Your Land" and was accused of being a communist.
Woodstock was also a reaction to real fears and led to some serious
spiritual searching.
"By the time we got to Woodstock," sang Crosby, Stills and Nash,
recalling the cow pasture event, "We were half a million strong, and
everywhere was a song and celebration and we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden."
Ah, the garden, an admirable goal. But as Woodstock-era musician John
Michael Talbot of the Mason Proffit band - and now a Franciscan monk
- put it to me, "We were asking all the right questions in all the
wrong places."
And, really, honestly, that's what Woodstock was in addition a great
concert; right questions, wrong places. Charitably put, it was a
misguided mistake; a fantastic, glorious, weird, breathtaking,
improbable and oddly inspiring mistake in the midst of madness. You
had to be there in 1969 to feel it. It seemed so real. Almost like a
dream come true for some, a nightmare for the "establishment" that
didn't understand.
But the reason Woodstock has never been repeated is that it doesn't
work twice. That's what 300,000 music lovers at the very violent
Altamont music festival -- wishfully billed as "Woodstock West" --
found out just five months later. The world intuitively knows it
needs more than three days of peace and music. It needs a spiritual
peace that passes understanding.
If Woodstock is remembered as when "flower children" enjoyed breakout
musicians loaded with talent then OK, great. But to revisit Woodstock
as some kind of light still shining in darkness -- to see it as a
template to resurrect once again -- is to admit 40 years of failure.
Woodstock has to be viewed as a launching pad, a starting point to
discover a permanent peace past a party in the pouring rain with a
congregation of long-haired "revolutionaries," or it's a stillborn
tragedy preserved in film.
The bad news is that the current fawning over Woodstock suggests
there has been little movement past that pivotal moment galvanizing a
generation to seek peace as a priority. The Good News is the Gospel
of love is still available for those who believe.
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